But for a Slime

Chapter Twenty Eight

Joe woke the next morning, forced to stretch his back once again, the bed doing him no favors at all! Huh… I didn’t think my core was this weak! Should I start doing some more core exercises? His hair sprawled messily across the pillow and he struggled to brush it off to the side. How do girls deal with this? Joe ignored his hair and considered his core strength as he stretched and decided it was probably a good idea before he dropped to the floor between the beds and did ten or so minutes of core exercises focused on stamina. Garnedell, as always, woke with him, but seemed a bit confused by Joes exercises, simply watching him for a few moments. It wasn’t till Joe stood to prepare for the day that Garnedell jumped to help out, prepping for the day: a new cloak, his notebook, and supplies for the day. His hair, however, proved a bit of a new problem which he’d hoped he could now handle with greater ease. He’d found some of the hair ties the men of the area had used and was practicing diligently. It took him a bit, but he was able to successfully tie his hair himself that morning.

After breakfast, one which left Joe quite missing the old innkeepers excellent meals back at the village, Joe headed straight for the temple plaza and chose the next temple in line. Joe still hadn’t made it through all the twenty main temples scattered around the temple square, and as he had stayed here longer, he realized there were another couple dozen or more tucked back in the alleyways and side streets that branched of the temple plaza. With luck, Joe would be able to go through almost forty or fifty temples before having to return to the first. With that long, it would be almost a month between each visit even if he only focused on level zero jobs. With him stuck in his language, he could think of no other option but to follow the old priest’s advice and he would be taking a lot longer to get there. Joe could only hope that enough jobs would be opened on the way up that he would have another couple dozen to fill out his stats to get to a decent base. He wasn’t feeling too excited about his prospects though. His dream of matching his original stats was slowly being replaced with a hope to just make it to an average earth human’s. If he had that, he would have much more time to be able to focus on getting back to what he once had. I gotta think about Garnedell, too! There’s gotta be a way to get in a group or something so we can share experience… maybe I should let him go in the dungeon alone. Two spears and some string and he should be fine… these things are easy enough!

Joe reached the dungeon as he pondered this idea, and soon decided that he would see if he couldn’t get Garnedell killing in the dungeon by himself. They wound down the spiral staircase with confident ease and reached the bottom before Joe took a quick right down a familiar hallway. The hallways and rooms of the dungeon were not overly packed or difficult, but the dungeon turned out to be quite large, but an easy layout to learn as it turned out that much of it was mirrored in simple patterns. Joe hadn’t quite figured out the whole layout, but was able to explore about half the dungeon without getting lost at all. The right he’d just taken was off the beaten path, with very few adventurers in this corner of the dungeon, nor in the mirrored corner on the opposite side. It tended to be flooded with sparks ready for easy kills.

Once around the corner, he set up his spark killer and set off in search of some sparks to kill. When he found one, he turned to Garnedell and handed the weapon to him, but almost jumped in shock when he remembered the boy couldn’t hold a spear. Well… how am! Ooh! He can’t hold a spear but he can hold the spoon spear! Hmm…

“Garnedell! Give me spear!”

Garnedell blinked a bit, still in shock that Joe had tried to hand him a spear but then reached around behind him to pull out his own spoon spear. Joe holstered his good spear and retied the oversized nunchuk setup using his spoon spear and the boy’s spoon spear. He then handed the whole contraption back to him and smiled when Garnedell was able to easily hold it. Huh.. I’ll need to get another couple of these. For some reason, they don’t trigger the ‘anti holding’ … thing… so he could use it. Joe then took the time to teach him how to use it without electrocuting himself. After a good bout of miming and simple three word sentences, Garnedell seemed to understand and they turned to the slowly approaching spark. Huh… ball lightning is pretty slow… glad it’s not regular lightning! We’d be dead in a heartbeat.

Joe stayed close to Garnedell, guiding his hands to make sure the dangling spear always stayed in contact with the floor but keeping the spear they were holding high enough to be out of contact range with the spark. When he was close enough, Garnedell shoved the spear into the sparks mass and it began its typical buzzing whine and flickering spasms. Joe watched with some satisfaction as the boy held firm and soon the spark grounded out, its gem falling to the ground. Joe stepped forward and picked up the gem, handing it to Garnedell.

“Good! You kill. You keep!”

Garnedell had a huge goofy grin on his face and held the spark gem in his hand with fierce pride.

“You OK?”

Garnedell grinned even wider, if it were possible, while bobbing his head, “Yes. I am OK!”

“Good! Sleep! Joe. Garnedell. Go spear. You kill tomorrow!”

Garnedell grinned even larger and replied happily, “Yes! I nar-kola spear tomorrow and I kill-kola many spark-shun!”

Joe laughed in response, giddy over the kid’s happiness as well as his own increasing ability to learn the language. Huh… wonder what kola means… maybe the future tense? He will kill many sparks tomorrow… hah! I think I’m getting this. But I’ll still need to get the language job… all my status still reads in English!

Joe retrieved the spark killer setup and clapped the kid on the shoulder, "Tomorrow. Garnedell kill!”

Garnedell smiled and Joe turned away, heading back into the depths of the dungeon, looking for his first kill. They didn’t find any in the long hallways, which surprised him a bit. Usually, there were another two or three before they got to the first room. When they got there, though, they found the room as full of sparks as normal, and Joe quickly settled in to slaughtering the room full of sparks. The first kill, as always, moved him from level zero to level one for specialist, and Joe quickly took out his job notebook to note down the specialist information.

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

1.00

Physical:

MP

1.00

Piercing

0.00

Attack

1.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

1.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

1.00

Magic Defense

1.00

Strength

1.00

Dexterity

1.00

Agility

1.00

Specialist

1

Speed

1.00

Endurance

1.00

IQ

1.50

Wisdom

1.00

Learning

2.00

Luck

0.00

The list of ones had him feeling a bit depressed, but the extra bit for IQ lifted his spirits. One really excited him and had him dancing and shouting around the room was the learning at two. HA! This job is a gateway job! It’s unlocking other jobs, and if I were to guess! The main feature of these jobs is going to be IQ and learning! His dancing surprised Garnedell but Joe said nothing simply because he had no way to explain it. He quickly turned to the dozen sparks in the room and began the slaughter. Four kills had him at level two. Three kills had him at level three. Another three saw him at level four, and another three finished his trip to level five, the last spark found just outside the other doorway to the room. Ha! One room had me hit level five! This is insane!

Joe giggled with unabashed delight and he took a look at his learning, seeing it at forty one points. He needed five hundred points to reach level six, so another ten or so sparks would have him hit the next level. Just that extra one point per level was so significant, it left Joe a bit out of breath! You know… I don’t think I care about IQ anymore! Learning is my new drug! It had taken a good hour or two to clean out the room, significantly faster than the previous four or five jobs he’d had to do, but still a bit of time. Still not so easy!

The time to kill the sparks was significant: taking just under five minutes to kill, plus another minute to pick up the loot or grind the spark gems to dust, then finally the travel time to the next. It all rounded out to just about five minutes all told. Maybe I should try slashing them with wooden weapons while also grounding them? I don’t want too many gems… so I don’t care if I break them! Hmm… maybe a thought for tomorrow.

Levels six to ten took quite a bit longer, each level taking almost as much time as it was to get from one to five. But despite that, they found themselves hitting level ten about noon. Maybe a little after noon? Still! This is insane! But it makes sense! I’ve doubled my experience gain growth, it should mean that I’ll get a lot more growth over time as I level!

Joe and Garnedell sat down for lunch, and despite the norm of heading home after hitting ten, Joe knew he had to get to twenty for his next job anyway, and pushed on. He wouldn’t be able to take the leisure of raising up useless level zero jobs because he didn’t know the names of the jobs to ask for the job change! It took the rest of the day to make it to level eleven, and when Joe realized how quickly his growth had dropped off, Joe sighed with some irritation and took both of them back out of the dungeon. Level eleven in one day! Not too bad! Tomorrow’s going to suck though, especially after the high of today!

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